Gun buyback sees large number of weapons

Thursday

Dec 17, 2015 at 5:01 AM

Although it was scheduled near the anniversary of one of the deadliest mass shootings in our nation’s history - the Dec. 14, 2012 massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut – this year’s Goods For Guns buyback program in Worcester County was timely for a number of reasons.

After a year in which gun violence increased in the city while other categories of crime saw a decline, and amid national calls for more gun control after an unprecedented string of mass killings, the subject seemed to be on everyone’s mind.

“We like to think we’re playing a small role in that by making people aware,” Worcester Public Health Director Dr. Mike Hirsh said.

With this year’s buyback, held earlier this month, police in several communities took in 271 firearms and 54 replicas for a total of 325 weapons. Since 2002, the program has collected 2,834 firearms (this is the first year reimbursement was offered for replica weapons).

Barre, Grafton, Leicester, Millbury, Northborough, Northbridge, North Brookfield, Oxford, Rutland, Shrewsbury, Southbridge, Spencer, Sturbridge, Webster and Westborough joined Worcester in the program this year. Residents dropped off working firearms – and starting this year, replica guns – at their local police station.

At the Worcester Police Station, which also serviced Westboro, Shrewsbury and Northboro, residents dropped off 70 guns. Of them, 30 were semi-automatic weapons, by far the highest total out of the participating communities. The next highest number of semi-automatics was three, in both Oxford and Leicester.

In all, 42 semi-automatics were collected.

Ahead of the Dec. 12 event – the 14th annual installment of the buyback program – health officials and police chiefs from the 16 participating communities met at a trauma bay in UMass Memorial Hospital to discuss the program’s track record and steps for this year’s event.

Hirsh pointed to relatively low penetrating trauma rates in Worcester, and praised the buyback program’s effectiveness. Worcester’s penetrating trauma rate – which encompasses every incident where a bullet creates an open wound – was 0.14 per 1,000 people between January and July this year, the lowest rate out of the nine cities examined, which included Boston, Brockton, Fall River, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford and Springfield.

Springfield led the pack, with a rate of 0.61 per 1,000 people over the same time period.

Since 2002, not counting this year’s event, the gun buyback program has spent $134,925 securing 2,563 guns. Of that number, 653 were “long guns,” 975 were pistols or revolvers, and 935 were automatic or semi-automatic weapons.

This year, with gift cards offered worth $25 for a rifle, $50 for a pistol and $75 for a semi-automatic, the program spent $12,050 securing firearms, not counting replica guns.

Intuitively, that price seems like a steal. Firearms are not a cheap proposition, with even lower-end models going for hundreds of dollars in some cases. Hirsh said he and others were looking at increasing the prices for future events – Boston, for example, gives out $200 cards – but he also said the price does not matter as much as someone might think.

The result of a survey of 273 gun buyback participants showed a variety of reasons for turning in a gun – chief among them the simple idea that the person did not need the gun, which accounted for 48 percent of motives in the study. Far down at the bottom of the list was needing the gift card – only 7 percent of respondents said that was a factor in their decision to turn in the weapon. Hirsh said he even encountered cases where a person would turn in a gun and turn down the gift card.

Worcester County District Attorney Joe Early Jr., who gave Hirsh a $5,000 check for the program at the press conference, said the goal of the program was to allow widows who may have inherited a gun. or others who may not know how to handle one properly, to get rid of it in a safe, controlled way. He compared it to other city programs where people can turn in old prescription medication. Estimates given by participants for what percent of guns used in crimes were stolen ranged from 25 to 35 percent.

“We don’t expect the gang-bangers to be bringing in guns,” Early said. “But we’ve got an element that is breaking into houses and stealing them.”

Although Early said he is usually strict about locking people up for illegal possession of firearms, if someone has a gun in a brown paper bag and is taking a direct route to the police station, the individual will not be prosecuted when they turn the gun in. On other days, Early said to call your local police station to go through the process of dropping off a gun.

The program took in far more guns than last year, when police collected 147 firearms, and was well ahead of 2013, when 85 were received.

The number of communities participating each year fluctuates, and more towns than usual joined the program this year to help it with its best year in more than a decade. The only time Goods for Guns took in more guns was in 2004, when 305 working firearms were collected.

The total breakdown this year amounted to 103 rifles, 125 handguns, 43 semiautomatics and 54 pellet guns.

Close to Worcester in the number of guns taken in was Webster, which collected 52 weapons, and Barre, which took in 33 rifles and handguns. The only community that did not report any turn-ins was North Brookfield.

Officials say the buyback program extend beyond high-profile incidents of gun violence, pointing to suicide attempts and accidental discharges as events that are made more common by the presence of an unsecured gun in a home.

“Guns don’t take care of themselves,” Early said. “It takes people to do that.”

UMass Memorial Medical Center President Patrick Muldoon said he was proud to support the events and programs UMass is involved with, but none as much as the gun buyback program.

“This is probably the most significant and meaningful commitment we have,” Muldoon said.